Hay Festival 2012: day three as it happened

Highlights and pictures from the third day at the Telegraph Hay Festival in
Hay-on-Wye, Wales.

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Boris Johnson was described as 'a very sexy man' by Tim Minchin on the Sky Arts Book Show at HayPhoto: CLARA MOLDEN

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...and presenter Mariella Frostrup seconded that. 'Bo-Jo has certainly not lost his mojo', she said of the London Mayor, who appeared at Hay to introduce his book about 'The People Who Made the City that Made the World'Photo: CLARA MOLDEN

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Hilary Mantel went into fascinating detail about the language she created for her novel 'Bring Up The Bodies', which is set in Henry VIII's court. She said she wanted to give 'a flavour' of how they spoke and no more because, as she put it, 'you have to privilege clarity of communication - and I hate pastiche.'Photo: CLARA MOLDEN

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Braving the deck chairs in the rain on day three of the Hay FestivalPhoto: JAY WILLAMS

Australian comedian Tim Minchin will bring his own brand of musical comedy as he sings for Pudsey at midnight.Photo: Clara Molden

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Safia Minney, founder of fairtrade fashion label People Tree, urged people to buy clothes to last and look after themPhoto: JAY WILLIAMS

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David Walliams and Chris Evans in conversation on the first day at the Hay Festival 2012Photo: CLARA MOLDEN

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Michael RosenPhoto: JAY WILLIAMS

By Daisy Bowie-Sell and Florence Waters

8:43AM BST 03 Jun 2012

The Hay Festival 2012 in Hay-on-Wye takes place between Thursday 31 May and Sunday 10 June. For reviews, news and pictures from the event see our Hay Festivalpage, or follow the latest Hay updates on Twitter @TelegraphBooks

Tweeting from Hay? Please share your thoughts using the hashtag #hay25 or let us know the best quotes using #hayquotes. We will publish a few of the best in the daily live blog, and the Hayly Telegraph, which you can pick up for free every day at the festival.

No one warned me this would be Woodstock with a high level of academic personality.

"None of us looked like we would make it." - -Harry Belafonte / JAY WILLIAMS

Sarah Crompton says he held his audience in the palm of his hand.

Belafonte talked fluently, almost without a break. He described his own epiphany when, while working as a janitor, he was given a ticket to the theatre as a gratuity. "It grabbed my soul and imagination to see people on stage using the words of a poet to spin magic."

A full review will follow tomorrow.

20.07 Susan Greenfield, the Director of the Institute for the Future of the Mind, has been talking about the way our identities are changing for a fast-paced world. Louise Gray:

Susan Greenfield, the neuroscientist, explained why working too hard might make you go a bit mad.....

She said that taking drugs, dementia and simply rushing around in a "fast paced world" disables the brain from making connections and therefore acting in a rational manner.

Explains a lot about work place stress!

Baroness Greenfield also said the internet was affecting our brains, though it it not yet clean whether it will be in a good or bad way.

She warned against the danger of disconnecting with other humans because of video games.

But if we use the internet to connect and discuss knowledge it could help us become even cleverer. "Technology can impede our humanity or we can harness that technology to really live our lives to the full."

"Technology can impede our humanity or we can harness that technology to really live our lives to the full." -- Susan Greenfield / CLARA MOLDEN

Clare, author of urban fantasy novels for teenagers centred around the part-angel demon-fighting 'Shadowhunters', addressed an audience of rapt teenage girls this afternoon.

The influences of the Tehran-born and LA-raised novelist's work are rather closer to home, however, as she recalled writing a Jane Austen pastiche cunningly titled 'The Beautiful Cassandra'.

Clare spent two years being home-schooled in Britain by her parents when her father was offered a visiting professorship to the London School of Economics, and subsisted on a diet of English classics including Austen, the Brontë sisters, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Upon returning to America her test scores showed her work to be a year ahead for her age, which she attributes to her time spent with the classics. As she puts it, "Basically, England made me smarter."

19.42Neil Midgley foundLabour politician David Lammy had some brave ideas in his conversation with Adam Boulton.

It was refreshing to hear a prominent Labour politician admit to some specific failings of the Blair/Brown governments: there had been too much new regulation, too many new crimes created, said Lammy. The MP for Tottenham - and likely next Labour candidate for London Mayor - had some refreshing ideas on how to avoid more riots, including more male role models in primary schools.

Refreshingly honest: Labour MP David Lammy / JAY WILLIAMS

He also said, bravely, that Labour - party of the workers - needed to rediscover the language of work. People who have a job and a mortgage have, quite simply, too many responsibilities to go out rioting, said Lammy. But sadly the economic ideas that Lammy put forward - such as subsidising employment during a recession, and controlling rents in London - still rely on Gordon Brown's failed economic philosophy of central government control.

Neil Midgley also watched the Welsh poet Owen Sheers.

Meanwhile Owen Sheers, the busy Welsh poet, has been discussing last year's Port Talbot Passion at the Telegraph Hay Festival. Having written that production for the National Theatre of Wales, Sheers says he now has two other big ideas in the works. The first is a play to commemorate the centenary of the First World War. And the second stems from his appointment as the writer in residence at the Welsh Rugby Union: a site-specific performance at their stadium. "Perhaps not as large-scale as the Passion was," said Sheers, "but pretty large-scale."

19.15 Geoffrey Lean has sent this report from a "vigorous debate" at the Hay on Earth tent on philosophy, politics and communication with Mike Hulme and Rupert Read:

If climate scientists are partially responsible for beating they have taken over the last two and a half years, how much are they themselves to blame? Two academics from the University of East Anglian - at the heart of the storm since thousands of emails were leaked in November 2009- give very different answers.

Mike Hulme, professor of climate science, believes that scientists ascribed too much certainty to their findings and went beyond the constraints of their discipline to make value judgements and recommendations for action. Rupert Read, reader, in philosophy, says that , on the contrary, they have not been courageous enough and should be bolder about issuing warnings about its consequences. After a vigorous debate, a show of hands showed that the audience overwhelmingly sided with Read.

18.58 Meanwhile Sarah Crompton has been looking for the key to happiness in the Barclays Pavilion:

The Nobel Economics laureate, Daniel Kahneman, widely regarded as the world's most influential psychologist, talked about the fallibilities of the financial services industry. "You've got a whole sector based on an illusion of over-confidence" he said. People were betting on their ability to predict how the stock market would behave. "But they are very unikely to be correct," he said, in a wide-ranging talk about his new book Thinking, Fast and Slow which analyses two different ways of thinking: one instinctive and instant, the other slower and more analytical.

"You've got a whole sector based on an illusion of over-confidence" - Daniel Kahneman at the Hay Festival / JAY WILLIAMS

My brain hurt just listening to him, but he was fascinatingly clever. "People do not really work from arguments to rational conclusions," he said. "They believe the conclusions then their arguments seem to back their conclusion."

One of his own rational conclusions, however, backed by research and evidence, is that there is a difference between life satisfaction - which people tend to feel if they have achieved concrete goals - and emotional happiness, which depends primarily on the amount of time you spend with people you like.

Untold wealth won't make you happier. If you are lucky enough to have £50,000 that should take you to the summit of emotional well being.

I seldom feel thick. I've got good A levels and a degree and everything. But let's face it, I do write about the telly for a living. And the intellectual consequences of choosing to focus my life on, say, whether The Voice is any good or not were laid horrifically bare in a session at the Telegraph Hay Festival by Frank Close, the Oxford physicist, based on his book The Infinity Puzzle.

I think (but I'm not sure) that the session was about two things: first, whether the Higgs Boson exists, and, second, who should get the Nobel Prize if it does. Somehow this involved an analysis of why galaxies are flat (it has something to do with a pencil not being able to balance upright on the top of a Mexican hat), the Taj Mahal, and a who's who of physicists for the past 50 years. I felt very, very thick.

18.26Gavin Pretor Pinney has just sent us some knew photos of crazy clouds from his award-winning book. The pictures were taken by member of The Cloud Appreciation Society all over the world, says Louise Gray.

My favourites are the chicken, the smiley sunset and the heart....

Sunny Face / KAREN M LLOYD

Heart / ADELE GOOD

Cockerel / ANDREW KIRK

A Bad Hair Day / MORAGH MCDONALD

The author of Clouds That Look Like Things, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, is talking at Hay Festival this evening at 7pm [72] on the Digital Stage - - See more photos from the book here

18.14Martin Chilton went along to find out what happened at the event with the punchy - but not altogether cheering - sub-title "Lessons From The Death Zone":

There was a moving event in the Digital Stage with the screening of Philip Gould's 'When I Die' followed by a panel discussion with his wife, Random House chief Gail Rebuck, literary agent Ed Victor and chair Francine Stock.

Gould's book, When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone, is published by Little Brown and proceeds from the book go to the National Oesophago-Gastric Cancer Fund and the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.

The film was curiously life-affirming as former Labour peer Gould, who died in November 2011, said "I just feel at one with the world" at the end of the film.

Rebuck said of her husband, one of the architects of New Labour:

"After he was diagnosed he kept ordering all these books about death. He was searching for a purpose. He decided this was his final campaign, to get people to talk about death."

But don't be sad and don't leave on that note, because I'm about to show you some of the best and strangest photographs taken by members of The Cloud Appreciation Society.

18.05 Q: Now, who on earth would, by choice, take to the toughest, most demanding, and most challenging long-distance walking trail in Britain - with no money and no shelter? A: A poet.

Louise Gray discovers why (sort of).

Some people buy a motorbike to get over their mid life crisis. Simon Armitage walked 260 miles along the Pennine Way, with no accommodation and no money.

In an effort to get back to the roots of poetry and perhaps his own youth he took on the role of a true old fashioned troubadour.

He advertised on his website at which villages he would be stopping and complete strangers provided accommodation. An old sock, "that was clean - at the start" was passed around for money at readings every night.

The poet admits he was ill equipped, unfit and is not quite sure why he took on the challenge.

But that just makes the journey through extraordinary landscapes with ordinary people all the more interesting.

"In many ways, the Pennine Way is a pointless exercise leading from nowhere in particular to nowhere in particular via no particular route, and for no particular reason. But to embark on the walk is to surrender to its law and submit to its logic, and to take up a challenge against the self."

He did it, that is enough. "Now I can buy a motorbike".

17.59 Still to come tonight, appearances from Salman Rushdie, Geoff Dyer, Susan Greenfield, William Dalrymple, and a debate about the legalisation of drugs:

&lt;noframe&gt;Twitter: David Aaronovitch - Discussing possibility of a radical drug policy later at &lt;a href="http://www.twitter.com/hayfestival" target="_blank"&gt;@hayfestival&lt;/a&gt; with Colombian ambassador, Mexican novelist and Dr David Nutt.&lt;/noframe&gt;

17.46 How does Hilary Mantel make history come so vividly to life? She talked about her new novel, the follow-up to Booker Prize-winning epic Wolf Hall, at Hay today. Gaby Wood was there:

Mantel was wonderful and poetic. Asked about how she made her writing about the Tudors so immediate - so modern yet so authentic-sounding - Hilary Mantel went into fascinating detail about the language she created for the purpose. She wanted to give "a flavour" of how they spoke and no more because, as she put it, "you have to privilege clarity of communication - and I hate pastiche."

"They are no less people for being dead" - - Hilary Mantel on the Tudors / CLARA MOLDEN

She got the sound of their voices, she said, from reading George Cavendish's Life of Cardinal Wolsey. Written as grippingly and as intimately as a novel by one of Wolsey's servants, the book gave Mantel a way in. "It was from the invaluable George that I learned to talk Tudor." But she was careful to resist a slide into easy comparisons: "I'm not just writing a giant parable of today," she said, "We have to respect those people's stories in their own right. They are no less people for being dead."

Festival-goers read the Daily Telegraph / JAY WILLIAMS

17.39 Due to popular demand, following the roaring success of Simon Armitage's Hay-themed haiku poem - a so-called "Hayku" - about Boris Johnson (see below), we have had a request to print them all. The are wonderful. Here they are:

The Bard

Poet in a field,

a mountain on his shoulder.

Next week, a puddle.

The Wye

All day the river

draws its question mark. Answers

on a postcard, please.

The Hunt

Ducked the firing-line.

But Jeremy, you promised

the earth to the sky.

The Bookshop

Ten thousand cooped up

in one shed, battery-farmed.

Let mine fly, oh Lord.

Simon Armitage is talking at the Hay Festival on Monday 4 June at 7pm

17.29 Caroline Greene attended a screening of The Thick of It-writer Armando Ianucci's new series in the Hay Sky Arts Studio last night:

Last night, in the Sky Arts Studio, there was an awkward drinks reception. It was hosted by The Vice-President (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in an early scene from the first episode of Veep, the new HBO series from Armando Ianucci, due to reach the UK in the autumn.

Veep

At the reception, the environmentally-friendly corn-starch utensils promoted by the "VP" (vice-president) wilt on contact with hot water, in much the same way as any new policy can collapse under the onslaught of powerful commercial interests. The message is familiar to us from the West Wing – as is the way advisers usher their politicians down corridors and into cars, bombarding them with words as they go.

But of course, the nearest comparison is with Ianucci’s The Thick of It where policies are more likely to be sabotaged by the incompetency and failings of individuals than by powerful organisations. And in the second episode of Veep the comedy centres on this, with the terrible ‘redacted’ speech given by the vice-president and the consequent race to ‘normalise’ her through contact with ordinary people. And it is very funny. Julia Louis-Dreyfus looks convincingly as if she is trying to hold her head above water, while being deluged with waves of increasingly impossible contradictions. You are left with the strangely reassuring sense that we are governed in spite of ourselves.

Peter Lord, the film producer, director and co-founder of the Academy award-winning Aardman Animations studio, was talking about the secrets behind the swashbuckling film The Pirates! He said that 10,000 mouth shapes were made for the different expressions.

Lord showed footage from the film, including how the ship sequences were filmed. They used CGI for the sea sequences having once tried real water in an earlier production. Lord said: "We once did the River Thames for real with cling film and prodigious amounts of KY Jelly. It was a bit of a disaster."

17.03 Should we leave the oil in the ground? Geoffrey Lean has filed an update from the Hay on Earth Stage where James Marriott, Rob Hopkins,Juliet Davenport, and Andrew Simms debated the question.

Samuel Plimsoll was once known as the most dangerous man in Britain - for his campaigning against the overloading of Britain's merchant vessels, which made them so unseaworthy and dangerous to their crews that they were known as 'coffin ships'. The measures he advocated, established opinion insisted, would cause the economic collapse of the British empire.

Yet he won through, the economy continued thrive, and we remember him for the Plimsoll line. Today the same argument is used against those who advocate limiting the burning of fossil fuels to avoid dangerous climate change - but we need a new Plimsoll line define how much if was safe to use. Switching to renewables is practical, would increase energy security and help kick start the green growth needed to get out of recession.

16.52 For those who don't already know, the Hay Festival is this year providing a platform for eco-warrior fashionistas. Safia Minney, the founder of ethical fashion label People Tree was talking on the opening day, and there have been various events and catwalks celebrating fairtade fashion.

Anita Singh replies: Boris was a joy. He should really get his own stand-up show.

Her review will follow shortly.

16.16 Michael Morpurgo talked about his life's regrets with his biographer, the author Maggie Fergusson today. Among them was his secret shotgun wedding to his wife, Claire, when he was just 19. Anita Singh's report of the discussion will be in the Sunday Telegraph tomorrow. There are some lovely details of their meeting:

He saw her in "an amazing green bathing costume with a very low back" and was "bowled over" by her beauty.

A passionate romance ensued, and the couple wrote to each almost daily when Morpurgo returned to Sandhurst that September as an officer-cadet. In one letter she wrote: "I'm longing for the days to go by quickly. If your letters to me come even in the second post, I go quite mad."

Michael Morpurgo, with his wife Clare / CLARA MOLDEN

16.06 Telegraph Arts Editor Sarah Crompton has Tweeted some of the highlights of Boris Johnson's talk:

&lt;noframe&gt;Twitter: Sarah Crompton - Boris &lt;a href="http://www.twitter.com/hayfestival" target="_blank"&gt;@hayfestival&lt;/a&gt;...went river swimming partly to be able to say "I've swum in the sea, the Dee, the Exe and the Wye"&lt;/noframe&gt;

15.52 The poet Simon Armitage has been inspired by Boris Johnson's appearance in Hay.

Ahead of his own festival talk on Monday night, Armitage has writtena series of haiku poemsfor the Telegraph about the Hay Festival - so-called "Haykus". Among them is one entitled

"The Johnson"

Spring brings forth its guests.

Boris in the grassy quad:

dandelion head.

The Mayor of London reads from his book 'Johnson's Life of London' -- "Bo-Jo has certainly not lost his mojo", said presenter Mariella Frostrup of Boris Johnson at the Hay Festival earlier / CLARA MOLDEN

15.28 Gaby Wood has reported on a delightful moment live on The Sky Arts Book Show. Boris Johnson made a surprise appearance, and sat between Hilary Mantel and Tim Minchin:

"It's 50 years since the Rolling Stones first formed," he reminded us, which prompted Mariella [Frostrup] to express surprise at the admiration he displays in his new book for Keith Richards - "who is, I believe, a tax exile". Boris appeared to be delighted to have a chance to explain: "I did include a line about the Rolling Stones's failure to contribute sufficiently, but it was taken out by the Harper Collins lawyers!"

He was then asked to opt for either Keith or Mick. "Well, it's a very delicate matter," muttered Boris, shaking his head. "I think... This is a very controversial thing to say... I think Keith is the higher genius, if only because Mick's lyrics are quite often unintelligible."

He was sitting on a sofa next to Hilary Mantel and Tim Minchin, and when the discussion came to Mantel's portrayal of Thomas Cromwell - and how surprising it was to fall in love with such a traditionally reviled figure – all eyes appeared to turn towards Boris by comparison. Minchin, who was looking rather relaxed and cerebral in glasses and no make-up, put his arm around the Mayor's shoulder. "He's a very sexy man," he said, "And you wouldn't have seen that coming."

Singing in the rain: Boris Johnson was described as "a very sexy man" by musical comedian Tim Minchin today / CLARA MOLDEN

15.14 Hilary Mantel's talk with Peter Florence has finished and seems to have gone down very well. We'll have a review shortly, but - oh dear:

15.06 Sameer Rahim has been watching the nature writer and English don Robert Macfarlane

Macfarlane said he broke more bones in the course of researching his new book on ancient pathways than he did in 20 years of mountaineering. Speaking to travel writer William Dalrymple, who along with Patrick Leigh Fermor and Bruce Chatwin he regards as something of a mentor, he explained that in the The Old Ways there are more people than in his previous work. "Paths are communal places," he said. "It's hard to make a path on your own."

On his travels round Britain and abroad he walked with pilgrims and drank gin with shamans. He was also haunted by a screaming presence one night which might well have been an owl, but equally could have been something more ghostly. When asked why he walked he said it gave him time to think in different ways about the world. "It's also cheap psychotherapy," he added.

14.50 And I've just been reminded of another reason why you might want to take shelter from the "literary mudbath" (as Salman Rushdie's described it this morning) in the Telegraph Tent:

The Telegraph's free Hay bag, designed by Paul Smith no less and available throughout the Jubilee weekend.

14.35 Deck chairs have been abandoned by all but a few hardy festival-goers (see 14.12). Others have found refuge on the Telegraph Tent's sofa - and the Hayly Telegraph. Today's Haly features an interview with the new star of teen fiction Philippa Gregory and a piece by novelist Hilary Mantel.

Hammond, talking about his book Crypt, said that he and Top Gear presenter brother Richard Hammond grew up in a haunted house in Ripon, Yorkshire. Hammond said: "The house had a ghost from Victorian times. We first became aware of a smell close to the landing. It was armpit smell - like fried onions from a hotdog stand. Other times, the smell was of roast beef or even chicken Coq au vin. Me and Richard hunted for the source of the smell and eventually we pinpointed a cupboard on the first floor. Dad got the blueprints of the house and there had been a small spiral staircase in Victorian times leading to what had been the kitchens. Our ghost must have been a cook so we called it Mrs Bridges out of Upstairs, Downstairs.

14.12 How is the Internet changing publishing? Sameer Rahim watches publisher and academic John Thompson talk about his landmark study of publishing in the digital age, "Merchants of Culture":

"We're living in a more tumultous time than in the last 500 years," saidThompson in a superbly lucid account of the problems in the publishing industry.

Just in the last 20 years we've seen the rise of the so-called "super-agent" -- characters such as Salman Rushdie's agent Andrew Wylie, who in Thompson's words, "was very combative", and "trampled on people's toes". He also distinguished between "buzz" and "hype": hype is when people with an interest in pushing a book talk it up; buzz is when people actually respond to the hype and talk it up themselves."

It sounds oxymoronic, but the Skip Garden, at London's Kings Cross, is at the heart of a new social revolution. Ten skips have been filled with soil, (two have been turned into greenhouses ) and are now growing a astonishing variety of vegetables. It is just one of a growing number of community projects growing food in the heart of Britain's cities and bringing often multiethnic neighbourhoods together, often reducing levels of crime and depression in the process, while bringing in much needed income. What about pollution? It's ok, apparently so long as you don't grow your veg within six metres of a busy road.

Here's the Skip Garden at London's King's Cross

13.47 Images of Sarah Crompton and Tim Minchin in conversation at Hay are in and they're lovely. They look like they're both having a blast:

Tim MInchin and Sarah Crompton at Hay. Picture: Clara Molden

13.40 Ever wondered how to be a conductor? Sir Simon Rattle was at Hay Festival on Thursday and he explains just that. Catch a clip of him here:

Scientists will know by the end of this year whether the so-called God Particle exists and the Large Hadron Collider will be switched off, according to Rolf Heuer, the director of CERN.

The search to find the Higgs Boson is one of the greatest mysteries in science.

The theory is that the particle is responsible for creating the universe as we know it.

If it can be shown to exist, it will mean that man now fully understands the visible universe and can look further back into the origins of the Big Bang and unknown ‘dark energy’.

CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, are using the Large Hadron Collider, a 17 mile underground tunnel, to accelerate particles so they crash into one another and create the conditions where the Higgs Boson exists.

13.21 Another answer to the question - What was the last thing you made with your hands? comes in from @hewitts on Twitter:

What did you last make with your hands?

13.17 There was an awkward drinks reception last night in the Sky Arts Studio, courtesy of Armando Ianucci's Veep. Caroline Greene reports:

Last night, in the Sky Arts Studio, there was an awkward drinks reception. It was hosted by the vice-president (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in an early scene from the first episode of Veep, the new series from Armando Ianucci due to reach us in the autumn. At the reception, the environmentally-friendly corn-starch utensils, promoted by the VP, wilt on contact with hot water, in much the same way as any new policy can collapse under the onslaught of powerful commercial interests. The message is familiar to us from the West Wing – as is the way advisers usher their politicians down corridors and into cars, bombarding them with words as they go.

But of course, the nearest comparison is with Ianucci’s The Thick of It where policies are more likely to be sabotaged by the incompetency and failings of individuals than by powerful organisations. And in the second episode of Veep the comedy centres on this, with the terrible ‘redacted’ speech given by the vice-president and the consequent raceto ‘normalise’ her through contact with ordinary people. And it is very funny. Julia Louis-Dreyfus looks convincingly as if she is trying to hold her head above water, while being deluged with waves of increasingly impossible contradictions. You are left with the strangely reassuring sense that we are governed in spite of ourselves.

13.09 Neil Midgley was at The Early Edition this morning:

Kudos to John Mitchinson for the best gag at today's The Early Edition, the Telegraph Hay Festival's paper review session. Andre Vincent had picked a story out of the Times magazine which said how much the Queen likes playing on Prince William's Nintendo Wii. Quick as a flash, Mitchinson asked, "Is it the royal Wii?"

@sameerrahim John Thompson on publishers and the digital future: "The truth is they don't know a thing." #Hay25 #Hay

12.44 Another answer to The Way We Live Now questions, by economist and Labour politician Meghnad Desai:

Q7: How can we ensure equality between men and women in every walk of life, from birth to death, in education, work and play?

This is the eternal challenge. All culture and all religion has to lose its male preference. All economies have to guarantee equal pay and working conditions. All societies have to treat daughters same as sons .All family property must be equally shared between siblings. Violence against women which starts before birth –female foeticide, and continues throughout their lives has to be punished.

12.30 Here's another Henry VIII from our picture Gallery. Couldn't resist this one. Sid James the loveable rogue in Carry on Henry.

“I really, really enjoyed the process of writing Matilda,” says Minchin, who was raised in Australia. “Even when I was hating it – even when whole songs were discarded – I knew I was enjoying it. I just feel I can go ahead in my career and challenge myself more now. I’m going to persevere with comedy, but I want to be writing things that outlive my comic persona.”

12.16 Alain de Botton answers Q19 of The Way We Live Now questions:

If you became the leader of your country what would you fix first?

I would reform the media to make sure that it was easier for citizens to exercise informed choices in democratic and consumer matters. It's hard to have a democracy and a market society with a media that inflames desire and prejudice.

His relations with the queen, as the summer draws to its official end, are chary, uncertain, and fraught with distrust. Anne Boleyn is now 34 years old, an elegant woman, with a refinement that makes mere prettiness seem redundant. Once sinuous, she has become angular. She retains her dark glitter, now rubbed a little, flaking in places. Her prominent dark eyes she uses to good effect, and in this fashion: she glances at a man’s face, then her regard flits away, as if unconcerned, indifferent. There is a pause: as it might be, a breath. Then slowly, as if compelled, she turns her gaze back to him.

We also put together a slideshow of the top ten Henry VIIIs on screen:

@sewit @KirstieMAllsopp @bbcr4today @hayfestival I make with my hands every working day. I recommend it

11.50 Here's Stephen Fry's answer to question 5:

Q:Do you think we are reaching a point at which technological 'progress' kills the spirit and what we are or will it liberate us all?

I think that’s a false opposition. It will do neither. Many believed that 1450 and the arrival of the printing press would mark the end of humankind’s ability to grapple with ideas solely with the mind – memory would be vitiated as learning was cloned and mechanically reproduced on paper. A few hundred years later theatre, then novels were the new danger to order, intellect and reason. Then cinema. Then television. Now the internet or social networking. Books neither killed the spirit of scholarship not liberated us. It is the wrong question to ask of them and it is the wrong question to ask of technology. Neither movable type nor the semiconductor were developed in order to solve the problem of being human. They just flowed from the condition of being human. They gave us tools. Tools that could produce Mein Kampf or Madame Bovary.

11.42 Peter Florence was on Radio 4 this morning talking about The Way We Live Now project. It turned out Kirsty Allsop was listening:

@KirstieMAllsopp: Hearing on @BBCr4today that @hayfestival are asking their visitors "what did you last make with your hands?" such a brilliant question.

Hay Festival is asking 25 questions to the Hay audience about life today. Here are ALL the Qs. To answer them visit the Hay Festival, The Way We Live Now page.

People have been tweeting answers to some of the questions - we'll try to bring you some of those.

1. Why do we read novels?

2. 25 years ago, the whole world lived in fear of an aids pandemic, the Berlin wall divided east and Western Europe, China and Latin America were considered part of the developing world and less than 1% of the world's population used mobile phones or computers. What changes will we see to the way we live now in 25 years time?

3. What was the last thing you made with your hands?

4. Which smell makes you happiest?

5. Do you think we are reaching a point at which technological 'progress' kills the spirit and what we are or will it liberate us all?

6. Which freedoms are you prepared to trade for greater security?

7. How can we see the ratio of women to men reach equality in every walk of life, from birth to death, in education, work and play?

10. Would you like the United States of America to a) grow stronger? b) stay more or less the same? c) grow weaker? Why?

11. 25 years from now climate change will have created over 100 million refugees. Where should they go?

12. Are you happy? If yes, why? If not, is there something you can do about it?

13. How will the world benefit from a realignment of economic superpower in the 21st century?

14. Are religion and democracy incompatible?

15. Half the world's languages are so seriously endangered that they are likely to die out during the course of this century. Does it matter?

16. What determines what food you buy?

17. Will genetically modified crops and lab meat save the world from famine?

18. What can the country and the city learn from each other?

19. If you became the leader of your country what would you fix first?

20. Which season matters most to you and why?

21. Mental health problems afflict 25% of us every year. Do we need to treat the perception of mental illness in the sufferer or in society?

22. Is it possible to truly care about events that will happen after the death of one's great grandchildren?

23. Teach us something important that you know.

24. Which living leaders, writers, scientists, and artists, are opening the doors of the future for humankind?

25. We're building a library of literature, music and cinema. Which one book, film and album would you contribute to it?

12.00 A lively troupe of Colombian jazz musicians proved a hit in the Sound Castle last night, says Mark Skipworth

Frente Cumbiero, the authentic sound of new Cumbia, are four musicians from Bogota and what a hit they were at Hay's new Sound Castle venue last night (Friday). A mix of Caribbean drums, New Orleans-style clarinet and the zaniest guitar-playing on the planet got festival goers on their feet less than half an hour into their great-to-be-alive set. Another success story for the Colombians, who also stage the wonderful Hay Festival Cartagena every January.

11. 40 Martin Chilton has been keeping track of who's selling well at Hay and yesterday children's writer Michael Morpurgo was top of adult AND children's bestseller list.

Rolf Heuer @CERN says we will know by the end of the year whether the Higgs Boson #Godparticle exists #hay25 @SLSingh Brain melting...

11.30 Roll up roll up! Don't forget to visit the Telegraph Tent when you get to Hay. It's got a fabulous table too:

11.18Philippa Gregory is also here at Hay today. She's the new star of teen fiction, according to Philip Womack in today's Hayly Telegraph.

The Changeling is set in 15th-century Italy, when the Ottoman Empire was flexing its muscles and the Christian Church was convinced that the world was about to end. It features a good-looking young monk who is sent out by the mysterious Order of Darkness to investigate strange phenomena – nuns having visions, rumours of werewolves – to map out what people fear. Even now, “we have a hunger for the miraculous,” says Gregory. Barely a year goes by without “statues moving or bleeding or crying or giving milk”.

He'll be talking at 7pm with Niklas Frank, Elif Shafak and Jim Al-Khalili in the Barclays Pavilion

11.03 Telegraph Head of Books Gaby Wood is on Eco-Age.com this morning, she's taken the Fru-Gal Challenge

Well, here I am at the Hay Literary Festival, and as suspected - it's raining!

So, having gone through a couple of T-shirt options, I am now wearing - and thank god for it - a North Circular fisherman's sweater. The challenge has already been quite a challenge! You'll notice that I am not in head-to-toe ethical clothing each day, but it's made me think a lot about what I wear, and it's directed my attention to quite a few people who are doing interesting things.

10.53 Here's Hary Belafonte, the singer and activist in the '50s. He's still going strong at 85....

We talked to Susanne Rostock, the director of the documentary about him - Sing Your Song - about what her favourite film was. It's Japanese film The Naked Island:

It’s the story of a mother and father and two young sons who are the only inhabitants on an island off the coast of Japan. They have no fresh water and try to grow rice on land that is quite arid. The film shows the rhythm of their life. There’s virtually no dialogue; the focus is mainly the work.

10.45Neil Midgley was up early this morning to watch Guto Hari talk to Huw Bowen on the Wales Stage:

Guto Harri, until recently Boris Johnson's head of communications and now filling the same role at News International, had an interesting spin on history at this morning's session on Welsh heroes and villains. "Historians are just like spin doctors," he joked to his fellow panellists, the historians Peter Stead and Richard Marsden. "You put an interpretation and a gloss on events. You invite people to see the past in a certain way - I invite people to see the present in a certain way." Indeed, Guto – Gerald of Wales, Rupert Murdoch… all the same really.

10.34 Don't forget that the legend that is Harry Belafonte will be at the festival later on today. David Lammy will be talking to him at 5.30pm in the Barclays Pavilion. While the documentary about him will be screened at 8.30 in the big tent. David has been asking for questions:

@hayfestival to interview Harry Belafonte. He's a great musician but his political activism exceptional. Suggested questions? #hayfestival

10.32 Festival director Peter Florence tweets about the love-in that is the beginning of the festival:

@PeterFlorence: first days of #Hay25 are like that airport sequence in Love Actually - gladness, hugging, meeting, marvelling. God Only Knows... xx

Writers, just as much as readers, bring widely varying architectural knowledge and alertness to the business of fiction. Some novelists, such as Thomas Love Peacock, in his country-house novels of ideas, or Edith Wharton, in her studies of Gilded Age New York, show real expertise, and questions of architectural taste often become part of the subject of their books. Others, like Dickens, have little or no interest in architecture as such, but create intensely imagined buildings, like Miss Havisham’s Satis House and Wemmick’s Castle in Great Expectations. Many writers are somewhere between, appreciative but quite reasonably thinking of the house as a stage set, a swiftly painted backdrop for the more important and detailed matter of the human drama: Henry James, for instance, has a savorous sense of the atmospheres of houses, both aesthetic and moral, but provides much less than you might think in the way of concrete detail.

Hay's new venue The Sound Castle opened with Mercury-Prize winner Speech Debelle performing from her latest album, Freedom of Speech. Loping on stage dressed in a baggy black outfit, Speech's street songs were accompanied by her rock band. "I live for the message, live for the rhymes," she rapped to the audience which was, it's fair to say, a little calm at first. She soon got everyone going with a call-and-response routine and by halfway through her performance the floor had filled with dancers. Even those unsure about her rhymes -- which tackle everything from breaking up with someone because "you know you can do better" to the problem of climate change -- were charmed by her stage presence. She asked the audience what they thought her song "Blaze Up a Fire" was all about: "It's not about arson," she teased. Instead it's about getting inspired, pushing the boundaries. She left the stage to cries, inevitably, of "Speech! Speech!"

Can you spot dolphins, elephants, UFOs, Alfred Hitchcock and even Andy Murray in the clouds?

The Cloud Appreciation Society has photographed all these shapes and they are published in a book by Gavin Pretor Pinney, appearing at the Hay Festival today.

What can you spot?

This photo of a lenticular or Flying Saucer cloud on Lion's Head in Cape Town, taken by Mary Hemsworth, is featured in a new book called Clouds That Look Like Things, published by the Cloud Appreciation Society. Picture: Mary Hemsworth / BNPS

09.50 The weather! Let's get a forecast:

It's looking particularly cloudy today and pretty cold. No rain forecast yet, but definitely take a coat. Take advantage of Hay's many relaxing spots while you can...

Q21 Is it possible to truly care about events that will happen after the death of one’s great grandchildren?

I remember years ago a New Yorker cartoon that had a shocked couple gaping at a happy pair of young men one of whom was saying, while holding the other’s hand: “We’re so lucky to be gay, we don’t care a damn about the education system or the environment...” words to that effect. I (sort of) wish that were true for me. I may be doing the world the favour of not leaving half my DNA hanging around in another clutch of human beings, but I have nephews and godchildren whose destinies I certainly worry about. But as for their children’s children…. Well, to be honest, all the geek in me feels is envy at the cool invisibility rays and matter-energy transportation beams they will be playing with. That’s how shallow I am.

09.24 Anita Anand has already been tweeting about her meeting with Boris Johnson. She's asking for questions from people:

@tweeter_anita Speaking to Boris Johnson @hayfestival . Any questions I should waft his way? #hay

Here's a few of the questions already suggested

@steve_parrett @tweeter_anita @hayfestival where does be get his hairdone?

@harryTGTaylor @tweeter_anita @hayfestival what conditioner does he use?

@janh1 @tweeter_anita @hayfestival Ask Boris if cyclist-priority lights will be installed generally in t City and how he will make cycling safer!

09.15 Hilary Mantel will be appearing again at 1pm where she talks to festival director Peter Florence about her new book Bring up the Bodies.

She's written piece for today's Review in the Saturday Telegraph on what it has been like writing about Thomas Cromwell.

About the year 1533 Hans Holbein painted a portrait of Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer in the service of King Henry VIII. Hans (as he was casually called) was not yet established as Henry’s court painter, but drew his sitters from minor courtiers and the Hanseatic merchant community. He was not seen as a remote genius, more as a jobbing decorator who you would call in to design a tassel, a gold cup, a salt cellar or the scenery for a pageant. Thomas Cromwell had not yet acquired his status as Henry’s chief minister; as the paper on his desk informs us, he was Master of the Jewel House. A gregarious, cosmopolitan man who had spent time in Italy and the Low Countries, he was probably better placed to know Holbein’s worth than many of his courtier contemporaries. The politician and the painter, both due to rise rapidly at Henry’s court, were bound together by a network of shared friends and shared interests.

Here's the Holbein portrait she is writing about:

Holbein's portrait of Thomas Cromwell

09.05 As you'll see from our Hay highlights article, We're also looking forward to seeing Mariella Frostrup at 11.10 this morning in the Sky Arts Studio, as she will be filming her Sky Arts show. Hilary Mantel and Tim Minchin join her as guests.

09.00 Here we are at the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye for the third day of the literary shindig. There's a huge amount happening today that we're sure will satisfy all your literary desires.

First up - the Hayly Telegraph is out. The front feature is an extract from Boris Johnson's book Life of London, where he tells of the bitter rivalry between Turner and Constable. Boris will be appearing later today a the Barclays Pavilion [51]